A tale told on Demora concerning the origins of the dark Demish races and the folly of mixed blood.

n the Golden Age, before the world became corrupt, there was no mingling of the lines of Sevildom, and the Family of Light ruled not only Demora but the whole of the Empire, with transcendent love.

The Vrellish came seldom to the Ava's court, and on fabled Demora they appeared only on the stage, or in stories needing villains. Uncouth and as violent as exploding suns.

Now it happened that there was a princess, sweet as fresh grass, who doted upon her bold brother, commander of their father's fliers and captain of their flagship, the Morning Dew. He came to table cross one noon time and it preyed upon her, so that she stayed up past the men's departures to ask him, "Dear brother, Aylerand why do you frown?"

"At cruelty, sweet Lothim," he said. "It is cruelty that makes me frown."

And as she was persistent and enthralled, he told her how his men had taken, in Red Reach, a Vrellish prisoner and brought it back to be on exhibition, which their father condoned. "It would be one thing," her brother said, "to hold an execution. But the creature is ill used."

"Is it a woman?" Lothim asked, her breath gone. For she had heard dreadful things of Vrellish women, and dreadful things were also possible from men.

But her brother said, "Nay, it's a young male."

And then Aylerand told her how the Vrellish creature, for all he was dull witted, had a rel way about him, and had taunted one of those curious to view him, so that the prince concerned agreed to test steel against him, to uphold his own bragging, and was slaughtered. Whereupon the murdered prince's kin forgot their honor.

"What became of him?" Lothim asked.

But Aylerand grew tight lipped and told her no more.

othim dreamed strange dreams about the Vrellish prisoner, fearing that her brother might endanger himself, out of pity. On the third night, one of the Waiting touched her with the certainty that what was afoot was dishonorable. Whether a Vrellish soul or Demish, she was never certain, but it is said the Waiting share one honor so perhaps it does not matter. And she feared for her kin. What, she thought, if they endanger their souls' through their bad behavior, which she still could not name but knew was wrong.

Maddened by this inspiration, she sought out the prisoner accompanied by an escort of her family guards, and discovered him kept in a cage like a wild animal, at a stables not far from the manor house.

"What are you?" he asked, springing up. He spoke crudely, as if ignorant of grammar, addressing her in peerage suitable for conversations between men of royal rank. Then he looked her up and down and laughed.

Lothim blushed. First in shame, and then in anger.

"What are you laughing at," she told him, using grammar fit for children, as she had decided that his crudity was ignorance.

And he said, "Those clothes! However do you manage to walk!"

That was the first of their conversations, which ended when she made so bold as to ask what her kinsmen did that was so cruel. He scowled at that and made a mock of her, saying Demish women never grew up and were fleshed, as well, like children. Plump, and lacking muscle. Unless she kept her muscle in her mound-like breasts. They were so swaddled up in lace, he told her, it was hard to tell what they were.

Lothim returned to her bedroom enraged by the clumsy insults. But she swore her guards to secrecy, and went to visit Vist again.

He told her his name at their second meeting, when she brought him delicacies on a smuggled tray. He was a prince of his own people, although they spoke of both genders as Royalbloods, disdaining 'prince' and 'princess', both, as Demish words.

"I will tell you this," he said, shaking a leg of chicken at her, "my mother's not a princess, nor my ha'sisters. And I should like to see some fool blond use the word on my great aunt!"

"But," Lothim protested, "it's an honorable thing to be a princess. It's a title held in high respect and regard."

"Is it?" Vist asked, cocky despite the bars, and folded his arms on his narrow chest. "Just you attempt to cross your men, then. And find out."

She could see how her kinsman had been tempted to a duel by him, and left angry once again.

The third time she went down to see Vist, he was gone.

"Brother!" she cried, finding Aylerand, "where is the prisoner?"

Aylerand pointed out the open doors of the bay window where he stood observing what was happening in the yard.

Lothim slid into place beside him, and together they watched Vist fighting first one and then another Demish prince armed with proper weapons and in one case, dressed in practice gear and face mask, while Vist fought unprotected with a blunt tipped exercise sword. He was getting the better of it despite that, although he had been touched a few times and his white shirt showed blood.

Aylerand said, appreciatively, "The crimson house."

Lothim murmured, "Make them stop."

Aylerand turned her away from the window. He said, "I have asked him, and he says he would prefer this death to execution."

Her heart pounding, Lothim cried, "Why does he have to die at all!"

She had not known, until then, that she loved the strange Vrellish man.

Of course, she was protected by her men folk from this alarming leaning of her heart, for the more she protested they must not kill Vist no matter how it was done, the more concerned they grew. Before the clashing of swords ended, for the day, below, Aylerand and her father had confined her to her room for her own good.

Yet there were men, as well, whom Vist's rel courage moved. One of these came to her to beg her help, and together they contrived to smuggle the Vrellish man off the estate dressed in the cloak of a maid servant.

Lothim went with him in a crude cart, disguised as its driver, her heart in her mouth and her golden curls tucked into a cap.

"You look better in pants," Vist remarked.

Stories differ here, regarding how she was rewarded. Whether taken, as virtue required, or seduced by false promises of love. All that is sure is, by morning, she was convinced they had exchanged hearts, and forbore to let him know how hers was broken by the mortal necessity that he depart at once. He took ship, and there was, thereafter, no catching him, for in some things the Vrellish must have their due, however lacking they may be in graces or civilized customs.

othim returned to be chastened, but none guessed the extent of her folly until she grew, swiftly, with child.

Her father was, then, for quietly snuffing the baby's life and sending Lothim to a musical conservatory, for life, marked down as a fallen woman. But she loudly refused, declaring Vist her husband. She had married him, she told them, in a village they passed. Which was proved, but her father declared the business void, and there were irregularities surrounding it, to be sure, beginning with Vist being in a maid's cloak and Lothim in a man servant's breeches. Worst of all, the act was solemnized by a town herald, acting on behalf of someone less Sevolite than the rebel couple, with more imagination than fact about his claim to a few drops of Golden blood.

The quarrel split the family grievously, with Aylerand protesting, to start, that to kill the child inside her was too dangerous. He was the first to see the child, when it was born. One look at it, and at his sister's face, aglow with mother love, and Aylerand turned grim, and stalked out with his hand on his sword.

By the end of the week a duel was set between him and his embittered father, family and vassals split between, but most prepared to settle with the spilling of either liege or heir's blood.

Lothim was weak from the birth and from worrying. The baby was lusty and hale, with blue eyes two shades darker than her mother's and her father's black hair. Torn between loves, Lothim took the baby to her brother and begged him to send her away and declare to their father that she had been dispatched, for she feared her father would win the match.

Aylerand only stroked his niece's dark hair. "She is not Vrellish at all," he told his sister, with a smile, "she's Dark Demish."

"Please!" Lothim begged, and began to weep. For she feared to lose both child and brother if Aylerand should fall.

"Dear sister," Aylerand declined, "that would be no way to treat a niece. Besides, you have shown me that our father's heart pumps pride about his veins, not love. I should have to fight him now, out of mere certainty he should not rule our people or speak for them before the Golden Emperor, were you the stake, or were you not."

"I am irrelevant, then," she said bleakly.

Aylerand cupped her face and told her, "Never that."

But Aylerand and his father never crossed swords, that day, for a messenger came from that same Golden Emperor, saying Fountain Court sent word from Gelion that honor must be shown that day, for there was one with status there who claimed that he was Lothim's husband and her child's lawful sire.

Shock attended on the duel that did follow.

Shock that a Vrellish challenger would stand upon the manicured ground of the Golden Emperor's challenge park, beneath a clear Demoran sky, declaring his sword in defense of a Demoran princess he declared his bride. Shock at the rest of his flight hand, attending him, one of them male and the other three hard-bodied females, hair close cropped, hands on hilts, and half of them still in their flight leathers. Shock that Aylerand almost refused to stand aside, and that when he did, their father did not back down, even when the Golden Empress herself come down, hoping to stop the fight by offering to marry Vist and Lothim unambiguously, right there. Which she did later.

It was less of a shock that Vist killed his adversary, though the witnesses held their breath quite literally the whole while that the duel lasted. Swift as light, Vist was, and his adversary, perhaps, brought down by his own single-minded certainty of righteousness.

Aylerand and Lothim mourned their father. Lothim became liege, and accepted little Leece, as her mother named her. For a short while. Leece grew quickly and disdained the skirts put on her. Nor did her father help, for in such things he terrorized even his daughter's mother and no staff would dare the nursery. Vist slept there. Lothim slept often enough with him that she gave young Leece a brother.

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